Five years ago, you probably would not have seen the word "brand" peppered about the blog so much. In fact, the mere mention of the word would turn me off. I would have preferred to use "designer" or "creative". What the b word represented in my formative years of fashion loving (90s to the early millenium) was precisely the sort of thing that leftie liberal education has taught me to despise – fat cat flashiness, infrastructure and a far-removed distance between designer and consumer. In the same way that I've deleted personal MySpace profiles tagged with "Down with the fat cats…" and midnight Live Journal rants about corporate society, the friendship and understanding of the word "brand" has been a learning curve for the blog.

Better yet, the designers or creatives that started out small are well on their way to becoming a part of a whole new sub genre in the broad category of fashion brands. I consistently revisit the likes of Christopher Kane, Carven, J.W. Anderson, Meadham Kirchhoff and Proenza Schouler as designers/brands who create aesthetic worlds that are all too easy for you to get sucked into with an exciting potential to take on some of those 'brand' characteristics – the flagship stores, the bigger teams, the cultish fanbases – as well as segue into other fields. Their rise coincides with eager exposure and word-spreading through the internet and suddenly you find designers fast tracked into something bigger than what you expected when you happed upon them a few years ago as some young designer. Personally I've come to admit that being "bigger" is sometimes actually "better", so long as everything still rings true of what the designer had in mind from the get go.

Suno's rise has been quite terrific to watch and despite the relative youth of the label, Erin Beatty and Max Osterweis, who started off by working with Kenyan fabrics and production, have grown their remit beyond being a socially-aware label and have been enthusiastically lapped up by all the retail biggies. Their print world has developed beyond Africana and yet the kind of print and layering mixes that Beatty and Osterweis promote are distinctly "Suno-ish" in feel. When you begin to make-up adjectives revolving around the brand name, that's a fairly good indicator of the bigger picture to come.

Their S/S 12 collection was a continuity of that departure from simply piling on prints for the sake of upholding an original signature. The focus shifted to textiles and natural tones. I hope they take this as a compliment but if I were to wear chi-chi outfits to clean and cook in my imaginary rustic cottage in the South of France with shabby chic furniture, then this is the collection I'd have in mind. When I say cleaning, I really mean shaking a feather duster haphazardly at a cabinet or a light bit of sewing and when I say cooking, I'm actually stirring fanciful cake mixes and shoving things into Aga ovens. This is all terribly suited to the cotton pinny dresses, broderie anglaise, the stripy shirting and floral embroidery that the collection is rife with. The primness is almost cloying but since when did I NOT like a high neckline and a fully buttoned up shirt.

There is fruity suggestion in these pyjama bottoms that have a slit at the hips along with the numerous cut-outs that the rest of the collections takes on especially in the shoulder baring shirting.

The unexpected introduction of a flash of shiny red lame still make sense. It's when I've had enough of Agas and feather dusters and want to go shake my tail feather. Whatever shaking one's tail feather actually means…

Where their prints can live is of course the basis for my prediction for Suno as a brand-to-be. They've already applied them to affordable canvas sneakers…

I've dreamt up a whole host of Sunofication possibilities… furniture forays with the folks at Made.com perhaps… beautiful book jackets for Persephone books… tableware at Brooklyn eateries… delightful Suno pop-ups that have gelato stands… Globetrotter cases… the list goes on and all prompted by what the world of branding, marketing and collaboration has brought to fashion, something that I'm actually at present, pretty grateful for. Weird that.

P.S. I've failed on the fashion blogger stance on reporting on what juicy bargains are going on in the sales… the only thing that I've really been stalking is this Suno jacket that is now half price on their own website, Opening Ceremony and LN-CC. I'll probably succumb when the only size left is XXL or something…

The way the dots are laid out in the Suno jacket kind of remind me of Aboriginal art though of course, then it would be completely made of dots and nothing else. Still, I quite like the pattern of it. Thanks for sharing all of this information!

the collection seems to join different printed from different country and culture. That is so nice and very interesting despite the fact that they are not the only one in this ” tendance ” they fond their originality which means that we can trust us. They will rock women’s wardrobe !!http://www.younglington.wordpress.com